


Sailing Theseus's Ship

by theprydonian_archivist



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e11 Utopia, Episode: s03e12 The Sound of Drums, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-01
Updated: 2008-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-15 01:08:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7199321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprydonian_archivist/pseuds/theprydonian_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If an object were, over time, to have all of its parts replaced, would it then still be the same object? The Doctor's thoughts (and fears) on regeneration, over time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sailing Theseus's Ship

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "paradox" challenge at the LJ community tw_dw_slashfest.
> 
> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Prydonian](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Prydonian). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [The Prydonian collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/theprydonian/profile).

“It isn’t like ripping off a toenail and waiting for it to grow back, is it? It’s not just little pieces of you that change over a long time. It’s . . . everything. Everything of you changes. Every last part of you. We’re going to die, and then we’re going to be replaced by someone who thinks he’s us, but he isn’t! He can’t be! Because we’ll cease to exist. We won’t be us anymore.” He holds out his hand in front of him and inspects its small bumps and curves.

He finds, as he squints, he loves the scar just below his ring finger from when one of his experiments got out of hand and exploded. He loves the lines in his palm that tell him his future, if he were to believe in that sort of thing. He loves the small white calcium deposits in his fingernails that break up the dullness of pink perfection of the keratin. He loves the veins that protrude, the blue lines he can see and trace all the way up his arm. He loves the way his fingers curl, his wrist bends, his arm turns. He loves _this body_ , because it is his. It is him. 

“I’m scared to,” he confesses. 

He can hear Koschei growling at him, and then suddenly, he thinks about how he loves Koschei’s pin-straight brown hair, and his sharp blue eyes. He loves the way Koschei’s lips pout when he thinks, the way his forehead crumples when he’s angry. He may say it annoys him, but he loves the way Koschei’s fingers dig into his shoulders when he leads him around. He loves the way Koschei yells at him, too, because he knows there is affection underneath. Most of all, he loves the way Koschei’s hand fits perfectly into his own. When they . . . after they change, they won’t be able to do that anymore. That scares him more than anything. 

“Koschei, I don’t want us to change. I don’t. Do you think we could find a way? Do you think we could make it so that we didn’t . . . re . . . you think we could stop ourselves from dying?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Koschei snaps, but Theta can hear the (exasperated) affection underneath it. “You can’t even say it, can you? Scared of your own shadow.”

“You know what lurks in shadows.”

“I know I’m trying to study.”

“We’re gonna change, Koschei.” He speaks softly.

“We’ll be the same we always were. Now pay attention or you’ll never pass that exam.” Koschei gives him shove with those hands Theta loves, those small hands without a mark on them. They’ll grow, which is fine — All living things grow — but one day his fingers will be callused, crooked, and thick-skinned. One day, they won’t be able to recognize each other. They will cease to be, and cell by cell, they will be rebuilt, with none of their original parts reused anywhere. Obliteration, Theta thinks. He doesn’t like that word. 

“Stop thinking about it,” Koschei whispers. 

So he does.

***

The nagging fear still eats away at his thoughts. Over the years, he learns to catalogue each little characteristic he feels can only belong to Koschei, to this Koschei, to his Koschei.

As they grow, some things are lost, like the small hands that fit perfectly in his own, those two centimeters Koschei was shorter than him, and the voice he had memorized with its patient affection. 

Those hands are now sturdy, steady palms with long, thin fingers which curl around his body no matter where they touch. Their hands still fit perfectly together. They’ve grown together, after all. That two-centimeter difference between them has become five centimeters, and now in Koschei’s favor. Theta doesn’t mind. He secretly likes the way Koschei tucks him under his chin when he holds him. The affectionate voice is another matter. It’s just not something a young man like Koschei will show to just anyone. Still, when their hands are clasped together, when they're tucked into one another, he will use them again, the light tones of their childhood that promised they’d be best friends forever, no matter how annoying Theta could be sometimes. 

Koschei's hair is much the same. He doesn’t fuss with it. Theta has found he loves to run his fingers through it, until Koschei snaps at him for coddling. His eyes are no longer flickering emotions. They are promises, fixed across a open space, in a classroom, the library, their room. Koschei's lips still pout when he thinks, but they pout other times, too. And his forehead still crumples when he’s angry. The anger is never directed at him, though. 

It doesn’t annoy him when Koschei’s long, thin fingers dig into his shoulders. Most of the time, he is too distracted to realize the sensation is pain and not pleasure. There is a fine line they’ve built there. A fine, fine line they cross and dance around every night when the suns have tired from their diurnal games. This is when Theta has learned and memorized those new characteristics of his Koschei. 

He loves the way Koschei’s nails dig into the soft flesh of his inner upper arm. Koschei’s knee presses into his left thigh. He focuses on his voice, that lovely voice that’s always harsh but affectionate. He loves those fingers. He loves those nails. 

He wonders if Koschei loves anything about him. His body? His big, blue eyes? His wiry hair that always falls over his face? His inquisitiveness? His loyalty? The way his lower lip juts out when he thinks so hard of running away? 

His lip is doing just that now, because, one day, they won’t be Theta and Koschei any longer. Cell by cell, they’ll be changed, and their old parts won’t be saved to rebuild their original selves. They’ll die one day, and this will never be the same. 

Why? Why did it have to be like this?

He catches Koschei's gaze from across the room, and wants to run towards him. Koschei smiles, and he does.

***

There’s a spot, just above his hip, that Koschei knows well. It makes him gasp, he knows. Makes his body jerk.

“It makes your face screw up in the most appealing way,” his best friend whispers to him. “I wish you could see yourself.” 

Their young games have evolved into this. Words are Koschei’s best weapons. And his hands. Those hands. 

One day, those hands won’t be there any more. One day, those words will be spoken by a stranger.

“Stop it,” Koschei warns, but Theta can’t help it. They’re perfect like this. He wants them to be perfect forever.

“I said stop it,” he repeats, and Theta thinks of how, someday, those eyes won’t be that particular blue that belongs to the storms. His hearts hammer in his chest at the thought. Piece by piece, Koschei will be replaced and those beautiful, wonderful, perfect pieces will be destroyed forever. It will happen to him, too, but he’s never been fussy about himself. He only knows that him and Koschei are perfect together, just the way they are and —

His skull bangs against the wall as Koschei lunges for him. Those hands, those fingers, curl lovingly around his neck. That persistent knee is digging into him again. Koschei. Covering him. Choking him. Enveloping him. It won’t be like this after they change. 

So he pulls his friend, his lover, his other, closer and tries not to think about how his taste will probably change, too. His lips, his chin, his throat, his shoulder. They’ll all disappear. 

“Everything must end,” Koschei says with a trace of a smile at his lips, the lips that should never be taken from him. “But first, they have to begin. Shall we?"

The thoughts of change are brushed aside as easily as Koschei brushes through his hair. So he lets the point go, and lets Koschei have his fun. It’s his fun, too, after all. 

In the back of his mind, he’s drawing an equation for an infinite time loop where they’ll never have to die, where they can stay like this, forever.

***

They never said “I love you.” He realizes this on his second regeneration, his third self. He doesn't know where Koschei is in his own set of regenerations, but this isn’t Koschei. Where is his pin-straight brown hair? Those stormy blue eyes? His hands are gloved. Why? And, well, the _beard_.

He looks down at himself and finds he’s not the same, either. 

They’re gone. Theta and Koschei. They’re dead, just like he feared. 

A new era, then. The Doctor and the Master. They still play games, only there’s a lot more to lose. The universe, for example. The lives of his friends. 

The Master’s laugh frightens the Doctor, because he can still hear Koschei underneath it all, which reminds him that he is still Theta, after all. But it’s not the same, he reminds himself. It can never be the same.

***

The Master runs out of regenerations quickly. No more pieces to replace him with, no more parts. The ship is dead. The axe is dull. He is beyond repair.

The Doctor is only on his third regeneration. He feels slighlty proud of this fact, but underneath is the horror of losing Koschei forever. 

_But he isn’t Koschei anymore! He’s just a walking, talking corpse! That isn’t Koschei there. It isn’t! It isn’t!_ , his inner child whines. 

He’s scared, but he knows a little thing like death would never stop the Master.

***

He is right. Their game continues on, long after the Master's thirteenth life.

***

It happens. The War. He loses everything, everyone, everywhen. Obliteration. He still doesn't like that word.

As he curls up on his side, tucked away safely in his TARDIS, he thinks of Koschei and him. All those nights and days spent together, laughing and playing, and loving. Living. They were all the same thing.

A curl of hair falls in front of his face and he can’t help but want to regenerate into himself, his old self, his true self. He wants to be Theta again. 

But there is no Theta. Not without Koschei.

***

Life as an old decrepit man is easier once you had some practice. It has been a very long time since his first body. He tries not to remember his past, not when _he's_ about. It is dangerous to think of anything these days.

(When they sleep, the humans dream of red grass and twin suns, silver trees and glistening structures. They run in their dreams, and they laugh and they love. The Doctor doesn't dream at all.)

“My nerves are bad tonight,” the Master, this young Master with the wild eyes and short-cropped hair, stands solemnly by his side. 

The Doctor recognizes the quote. He doesn’t speak, but he comes close, so close, when the Master’s hand slips into his. 

They fit perfectly together, just like they always have throughout their regenerations, had they bothered to do so.

But is it still the same? The Doctor cannot answer himself.

***

“We’ll have to replace pretty much everything. It looks like it’s completely shot. She’s in rough shape, Doc. Nothing some experienced hands can’t handle.”

The Doctor is sure Jack winks at him, but he isn’t looking. He is holding a piece of the TARDIS in his hand, a piece that he will have to replace. Bit by bit, this TARDIS will be replaced. All new parts. He should refuse, but he knows it is the only way to make her better. She must be fixed in order for her to live. She will always be his ship, no matter what. 

It's taken the Master this long to finally get the Doctor to understand. The Doctor tries to smile. He always was a bit too slow on the uptake. After the repairs, the TARDIS will be still be the TARDIS, just as after regeneration, Theta will still be Theta, and Koschei will still be Koschei, no matter how many names they use, no matter how many repairs their bodies go through. 

He imagines the love and the care the Master put into this horrible creation. He imagines the brightness in Koschei's eyes as he worked. The laughter. The love. He imagines a lot of things, but the ache in his hearts is real. 

He could have been Theta still. He could have, but there is no Theta without Koschei.


End file.
